Harmy said:
I'm personally not too excited. There were some bits I liked and there were some I didn't. Some of the character moments were nice but in the last shot, it didn't click for me as seeing Han again, I just saw Harrison Ford, I don't know why and Chewie looks really weird too.
And the VFX shots reminded me of this video by MVerta about VFX shots grounded in reality, which was a hallmark of the original movies. The crazy camera moves, while cool, just don't read as reality. It looks sort of incogruent with not only the original movies but, from what we've seen so far, also with the live action in this new movie.
I actually totally agree with everything you said here Harmy, those were my exact thoughts as well when I saw new teaser, Chewie looks kinda plastic and his eyes remind me of the CG eyes of the Ewoks from the ROTJ SE, he looks very weird. There was also something about Harrison Ford in that shot that felt like he was playing himself rather than Han Solo.
The CG shots of the millenium falcon have me a little worried as well to be honest, it doesn't quite look real to me and I don't know why, the CG of ships in Guardians of the Galaxy looked far more convincing to me, I hope that by the end of the year the CG of the ships is at least at the level of GOTG. That combined with the insane OTT camera moves makes everything look a little too much like a video game cutsequence for my liking.
There was stuff I liked as well of course, that first shot with the partially buried star destroyer was fantastic IMHO, when Vader's helmet appeared I was grinning from ear to ear. Loved the Luke voiceover of course. Sets look great, nice and real, which is a massive improvement on the last two prequels. The new young actors look like they can actually act which is great as well.
Not a big fan of the new stormtrooper helmets, they look a little too non theatening to me (perhaps Disney wanted them to be more kid friendly?) to me in comparison to the more intimidating original trilogy helmets. There was the teal and orange colour scheme throughout but of course its early days and that will most likely chaange, I hope they go for a more naturalistic look for the final release.
Very happy that BB-8 is real, you can feel that he's real in that shot in the teaser and it really makes all the difference IMHO. That was my highlight during the celebration, when he came on stage, absolutely fantastic. Was I the only one that noticed how much he sounded like wall-e though?
All in all I am cautiously optimistic, its definately shaping up to be much better than the prequels, I just hope from now until the release they can ground the CG of the ships flying around a little more, dirty them up and make them look more substancial and real by the time its released theatrically. Fingers crossed that shot of Chewie will be improved so he looks more real and less plastic, the eyes need work so they look less weird and he could use a few grey hairs so he looks slightly older than in the Original Trilogy IMHO. In the shot from the teaser he looked even younger than he was in the OT.